


Remembrance

by pettycoat



Category: Nier Gestalt | Nier
Genre: Amnesia, Character Study, Drama, Fandom Growth Exchange, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-19
Updated: 2018-10-19
Packaged: 2019-07-30 00:44:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16275704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettycoat/pseuds/pettycoat
Summary: He's sure he should know more.





	Remembrance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [The_Exile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Exile/gifts).



> Written for the 2018 Fandom Growth Exchange, for a character that goes sorely unappreciated within an already underappreciated fandom. Contains some references to the Grimoire Weiss novella from Grimoire Nier.

The village is not at all what he’s expecting. Or perhaps it is. When his entire introduction to a species is being bludgeoned over the cover by a sword, he supposes it’s a minor miracle these people aren’t living in caves, picking mites out of their hair and clubbing their mates over the head with rocks. It’s… rustic.  A more saccharine sort might even call it _cozy_. But Grimoire Weiss is not one for sentimentality. All he sees are bodies ready to rot and towers ready to crumble. When one has lived as long as he, a village like this may as well be another ruin baking in the sun.

That gorilla-armed oaf who so graciously pummeled him awake certainly isn’t making things more palatable. Nier couldn’t hold a stimulating conversation on threat of death. Yet Weiss can’t say he has the heart, so to speak, to demand more of him. The man is nothing if not devoted to that one-track mind of his, and it’s almost admirable to see someone so focused on a task already doomed to fail. Weiss sits hovering in the kitchen as Yonah’s voice comes soft and pleading through the floor above. He supposes he shouldn’t be surprised by the spartan state of the house, though he could do without the fine layer of dust covering every surface. He idly scans the walls. Not so much as a cookbook. The bed nestled in the corner looks as if it hasn’t been used in weeks, the small dining table with its two squat chairs even moreso. Heavy footfalls descend down a creaking staircase. Weiss turns.

“I gave her some medicine,” Nier says, hoarse and thin. “She’ll be out for a while.”

“You’re already leaving?” Weiss asks, watching as he sits to pull on his shoes.

“I need the work.” Nier twists to pull a hellacious pop from his neck. “And hanging around here will just keep Yonah awake.” He reaches for the sheath and sword he’s left leaning against the wall. “You coming along? Some woman wants me to butcher some sheep for her.”

“And risk you soiling my pages in your inevitable bloodbath?”

“It’s just a little blood. I saw you sucking up entire rivers of the stuff back in the shrine.”

“Why taint the tastebuds with fetor and feculence when one can feast on ambrosia?”

“Whatever you say.” He hoists the sword over his shoulder. “I’ll be back eventually. Let Yonah sleep. She’s had a rough day, Weiss.”

Weiss bristles with a fluttering of paper. “ _Grimoire_ Weiss.” But the door has already closed behind him. He settles into the shadows and stares through a sliver of window. If this is where he's doomed to stay now that the shrine is little more than rubble, he would do well to familiarize himself with it. Preferably  _without_ a crowd subjecting him to their barrage of inane questions. The day is breezy and mild, the air filled with children’s laughter and the snaps of linens on washlines. Weiss sees cookfires on the hills and dishes left to dry by the river. The village is certainly... livelier than the shrine ever was. He never thought he’d be thankful to not have a nose. He’s fretting over a cobweb that’s become lodged in the creases of his spine when he hears the small squeak of a floorboard.

“Um, Mr. Book?”

Weiss whirls around. “I believe your father wants you to stay in your bed, young lady.”

Yonah wilts. “I… I know… But…” She looks down to the battered old book she has cradled in her arms. “I promised Popola I’d bring this back today…”

“I’m sure your father will take it when he returns.”

Somehow, the girl shrinks back even more. “I—I don’t think he’ll be back in time.”

Weiss hovers there a moment. She looks exhausted, like she could crumple at any moment. The Scrawl is such a cruel sickness. And for one so young… He sighs. “Hand it over. I suppose there are less welcoming places than a library for one such as myself.”

Yonah’s smile almost makes her look well. “Thank you, Mr. Book!”

“Yes, yes.” He clasps it between his pages with a glance at the cover. A book of fairy tales. What mawkish drivel. “Now off to bed with you.”

“Okay!” She stumbles up the stairs. Weiss is left to consider the door before twisting with a huff and squeezing through a skylight. He can’t remember the last time he’s seen the sun. How can it still be so unbearably bright? He keeps to the shadows as best he can. He’s already had enough gawking from the villagers for the day. Weiss coasts over to the outer walls of the library and stops under the shade of a withered oak sapling. The doors have been propped open to let in the breeze. He’ll take the small victory.

The lower floor is deserted. Weiss tilts to get a glance beyond the stairs. Nothing. No one. He hesitantly floats over to the lone wheeled shelf squeezed squat into a corner. Loose books have been stacked here with no rhyme or reason, waiting to be reshelved. He supposes it’s as good a place as any to leave a book. He twirls sideways, trying to ease it onto the leftmost stack, but it slips from his pages and claps sharply to the floor. Weiss stares at it a moment before sighing heavily.

Five minutes have him grasping ineffectually at the cover. He manages to drag it against the wall with another ten, snapping helplessly as he tries to find leverage with the stones, but it continues to evade his grip. And these floors are positively _filthy_. Weiss growls and shakes the dust off himself, feeling rather like a dog that’s just dragged itself out of a mud puddle. A great Grimoire, reduced to rolling around in the grime by little more than a common picture book. Perhaps drawing some arcane spell out of his pages and scooping it up in a rush of blood isn’t entirely undeserved.

Weiss falls back with a snap of his pages, scanning the shelves in the hope that somehow, somewhere, there must be _something_ worth reading. Even if this village lies on the cusp of civilization, the mere presence of a library tells him that the villagers aren’t _entirely_ lost. Many of the books are hand-bound, many more so old that the titles have faded from the spines, others so crude that they lack titles entirely. A few are in languages even _he_ doesn’t understand. He can’t imagine what a village like this has to gain from its small but comprehensive section on twentieth-century warfare. A tome promising a definitive guide to the history of androids causes him to stop just long enough to scoff.

Weiss gradually moves from wall to wall, taking in centuries of history and art and subjects of such utter banality that he curses his lack of eyes to roll. There’s a richly gilded book so exquisitely bound in leather that it fools him into thinking it’s something of importance. He manages to hook a corner over the top of its spine, pulling it out just far enough to see it’s yet another book of fairy tales. A child’s laugh floats in from outside. It’s almost loud enough to drown out Weiss’ groan of disgust.

But he reads. He doesn't have much else to do. Never judge a book by its cover, and all that drivel. He sets the book against a break in the shelving and bothers to scan the first page it falls to. The shrine comes back to him as the words start to bleed together, a sunny, holy place nonetheless entrenched in shadow and decay. His home for time immemorial, soon to fall to rot like everything else humanity has forgotten. For the immeasurable scope of his knowledge, even Weiss doesn’t know how he came to be there. His memory starts and stops at Nier. He can think of few things more humiliating. And yet these words seem so familiar, these images so stark and haunting. Some text seems machine-printed, dull in its perfection. Other words are hand-stamped and crooked, letters twisting and terminating in abrupt stripes of white. But most of the book is handwritten, a gentle, flowing cursive that somehow calls forth an air of nostalgia. Can one be nostalgic when one remembers so little? Evidently, one can. He flips from page to page with a rapid stirring of air from the fluttering of his own and comes to stop on the last filled page. A book this finely decorated that hasn’t even been filled halfway? What a mockery. But Weiss settles on those last few words and doesn’t pull away until they’ve settled along the length of his spine. The book ends on an unfinished sentence. A single word. Somehow, he feels like he’s being mocked.

Weiss slides the book back into place and gradually coasts backwards to hover in the middle of the room. He feels like he _should_ be at home here. He’s spent centuries standing guard in a room forsaken by time. What use is a book without a place to share its knowledge? What use are words when no one is around to hear them? Weiss has millennia of arcane knowledge stamped on his pages, and yet he can’t remember a moment beyond a single dusty room and a ceiling open to endless day. Should this feel familiar? Should he be wondering if he's seen Nier's face before? Or should it be another memory lost to time, another dream of a harshly lit room and a fear that he'll be the next of its occupants to disappear? Weiss floats back over to the book he’s dropped to find it open on a faded illustration. A red dragon, a crude cityscape, and a hole in the monochrome sky. What tommyrot. Weiss stares down at the mess he’s made and almost misses the creak of a heavy wooden door behind him.

“Oh,” the red-haired woman says, one foot on the ramp leading up from the shuttered basement. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know anyone was here.”

Weiss scrambles upright, doing what he can to preserve what’s left of his dignity. “Ah, yes, well...” He clears his throat. Or at least does an admirable job of mimicking the noise, for lack of the proper anatomy. “Popola, was it?”

She nods with a small, distracted sound before looking down to the book of fairy tales. “Um, do you need any help with that?”

Weiss watches in silence as she scoops it up. “Oh!” she exclaims once she sees the cover. “You brought this for Yonah.”

Weiss tries to shake off the last of the dust with a fluttering of paper. “Yes. It seems she’s too ill to make the walk herself.”

“That was very kind of you,” Popola says with a soft smile. “Thank you.”

Weiss turns away. “Yes, well…”        

“Were you looking for something? I know we don’t have much, but…”

Weiss thinks otherwise when he realizes that even the shortest shelves tower over the average human. “No, no, not at all. I was only… browsing…”

Popola makes another little sound, dusting the book off and cradling it in her hands. “I’m sure there’s something in here you'd like. Ah, I mean, if you wanted to...”

Weiss makes his own noncommittal noise. "Perhaps I can visit another time."

"Oh."

They stare at each other.

"The shrine," Popola says after a time. "You must have been in there for so, so long..."

Weiss stares at the shelves. "Longer than you know, I assure you."

"I'm sorry."

Weiss says nothing.

"Will you...?" Popola takes a step forward. "Do you have anywhere you need to be?"

"Not immediately, no..."

Popola fiddles with her cuff. “In that case, could you please help me with something? It will only take a moment.”

Weiss hesitantly follows her as she pushes around the little wheeled shelf, watching her give only the briefest glance to each book before shelving it properly. She moves with a practiced air, careful yet efficient. He rears back on instinct when she turns to him with a nervous little smile, holding a small stack of books out to his cover. “Could you please carry these up for me? Sometimes it’s difficult to balance on the ladder.”

Weiss obliges, however haltingly. He is no one’s servant, and yet he can’t avoid the little niggling thought that her voice seems almost as elusively  _familiar_ as Nier's. “You trust your life to that creaking mass of splinters?”

“It’s stronger than it looks,” Popola says, climbing up that horrid shrieking ladder like it’s second nature to her. She takes the first book balanced atop his cover and slides it into place. “I hope the villagers are treating you well.”

“One can never grow tired of the groveling of one’s lessers,” Weiss mumbles.

Popola chuckles, an airy little noise that calls to mind a room filled with dark and dust. Weiss floats there a moment, troubled. “I hope you’ll be staying around. You may be just what the villagers need.”

“Is that so?”

Popola hums a little as she goes for the next book. However quiet she is, she has a pleasant singing voice. “Yes. I think they’ve been waiting for someone like you for a long, long time.”

Weiss waits until she’s climbed down before he speaks again. “Popola, how long have you maintained this library?”

She’s back at the wheeled shelf, drawing another stack from it and going to the wall. “Oh, a few years.”

“You’ve gathered this many books for a village this small?”

Popola waits a moment to answer, her eyes on her work. “Every book in here holds something someone thought was worth writing down. Don’t you think that makes them worth keeping?”

Weiss doesn’t answer.

“Even if these books are never read by the villagers, I’m glad to know that I kept them safe. Maybe they can help someone else, somewhere down the road.”

“The Shades grow in number with every passing day. Are you so sure you’ll still be around for them?”

Popola turns a book over to inspect its cover, not looking at him. “I’ll be here however long I need to be.”

Weiss considers her. “Popola?”

“Yes?”

A shape in the dust, a scream in the dark. Though he has neither the need nor the ability, Weiss makes something close to an exhale. “No. It's nothing." He looks out through the doors, into the world beyond. “Memory is oft so feeble a thing.”

Popola looks to him sharply. “I suppose so…”

Weiss looks out into the sky. No hint of the sun, and yet everything is so horribly bright. He feels like he should remember the stars. “Well. I suppose I would do best to return to Yonah before her father finds her alone.”

“Oh, yes. Of course. Thank you for your help.”

“Of course.” But Weiss doesn’t venture outside. Not yet. He thinks of a room without windows, with no door in sight, and yet it’s a room as bright as day, abuzz with foreign tongues. Can one feel dizziness without a functioning body? Can one experience nausea while lacking a stomach and mouth? There’s another room outside that shrine. He’s sure of it. Weiss floats out into the sunlight and falls into endless morning, left with nothing but his thoughts.


End file.
